1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a wireless video audio data remote system.
2. Description of Related Art
The nature of business organizations and their employees is generally such that, in most any subject, there are a relatively small number of persons with extensive training and experience (e.g., "experts") and a relatively large number of persons with only limited training and experience (e.g., technicians. This problem is exacerbated by the relatively larger costs associated with the former. Accordingly, when a business organization seeks to apply a person's skills to a problem, it is often faced with the fact that persons with the extensive training and skill are a scarce resource.
With many problems, and in particular with the problem of servicing and trouble-shooting equipment, experience shows that the most tasks require only a subset of the full experience that characterizes experts in the field, and that those tasks can be adequately carried out by entry-level technicians. However, when a technician is confronted with a task requiring an expert, often the only indicator thereof is the technicians inability to solve the problem. Sometimes the technician's lack of extensive knowledge can actually make the problem worse. These effects serve to increase the cost, time, effort, and frustration associated with the servicing and trouble-shooting equipment.
One method in the prior art has been to advise technicians at a fixed location using audio video and data transmission over various wired networks. An example of this is U.S. Pat. No 5,619,183 (Ziegra et al.). The main disadvantage of that fixed-site system is that remote-site technician oversight is impractical when a mobile work force requires video, audio and data transmission from continually changing job site locations. Another disadvantage is that the fixed-site to fixed-site system software does not fully utilize the idea of "leveraged expertise".
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a method and system by which technicians can perform the tasks they are adequately trained for, in a wireless environment, while allowing experts to assist them when expert assistance is required.